[Senate Hearing 117-812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-812
PROTECTING ROE: WHY WE NEED
THE WOMEN'S HEALTH PROTECTION ACT
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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JUNE 16, 2021
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Serial No. J-117-23
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.judiciary.senate.gov
www.govinfo.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-533 WASHINGTON : 2026
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California Member
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii BEN SASSE, Nebraska
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kolan L. Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
.........................................................
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut, Chair
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California TED CRUZ, Texas, Ranking Member
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JOHN CORNYN, Texas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
BEN SASSE, Nebraska
David Stoopler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Andrew Davis, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Blumenthal, Hon. Richard......................................... 1
Cruz, Hon. Ted................................................... 3
WITNESSES
Foster, Catherine................................................ 11
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Goodwin, Michele................................................. 8
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Questions submitted with no response returned................ 80
Ohden, Melissa................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Perritt, Jamila.................................................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Responses to written questions............................... 81
Tohan............................................................ 9
Prepared statement........................................... 77
APPENDIX
Items submitted for the record................................... 33
PROTECTING ROE: WHY WE NEED
THE WOMEN'S HEALTH PROTECTION ACT
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2021
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on The Constitution
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m.,
Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard
Blumenthal, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Blumenthal [presiding], Feinstein,
Whitehouse, Ossoff, and Cruz.
Also present: Senators Durbin and Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
Chair Blumenthal. The Subcommittee on The Constitution will
come to order. I'd like to welcome my colleague, Ranking Member
Senator Cruz of Texas, and the Chairman of the Committee.
Special thanks to Senator Durbin for being here, and our great
colleague Senator Feinstein, and I'm sure we'll be joined by
others.
We're here to discuss the Women's Health Protection Act,
because reproductive rights face a crisis unprecedented in
recent decades. The fact is that reproductive rights are
publicly supported as never before, but they are threatened
more deeply and dangerous than any time in recent history. The
threat is draconian, destructive laws at the State level. That
is one of the principal threats.
Obviously, the Supreme Court has decided to grant
certiorari in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
Organization, which is the first case since Roe v. Wade to
present the constitutionality of a pre-viability restriction
and abortion ban. That case could completely upend and reverse
Roe v. Wade. The reproductive rights that many Americans take
for granted have been under siege for years and years as a
result of the repeated and relentless attacks of laws at the
State level, and that's the reason that I have led the Women's
Health Protection Act, along with my colleague, Senator
Baldwin, and our colleague in the House, Representative Chu.
The numbers of State restrictions are so numerous that they
can barely be counted. Since January, legislators in 47 States
have introduced 561 abortion restrictions, including 165
abortion bans. An alarming 83 of those restrictions have been
enacted into law, including 10 bans. Several States, including
Texas, have passed bans on abortion at 6 to 8 weeks of
pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant. In
Arkansas and Alabama, lawmakers have tried to outlaw abortion
completely. At this rate, 2021, this year, is on track to have
the most antiabortion restrictions from State legislators in
decades, and I want to emphasize that these are laws that are
advocated and passed by extremist State legislators who are out
of touch with mainstream America.
The fact of the matter is, as we will hear from a number of
our witnesses, access to abortion is an essential form of
medical care. In our society, in the America we know, personal
health decisions that women make should be free to be made best
for themselves, their lives, their families, without political
interference.
The scale of attack on abortion rights has a
disproportionate effect on communities of color. Today, 90
percent of American counties are without a single abortion
provider. Twenty-seven States have become, in effect, abortion
deserts, because people who live there must travel 100 miles or
more to reach a provider. These restrictions and bans, very
simply, make a safe procedure unsafe and, for many, impossible
to access. That's why we're holding this hearing and why the
Women's Health Protection Act is more important than ever
before.
I was a law clerk to Justice Blackmun in the 1970's, in the
year after he wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. We
thought then, ``This issue is done. It's over. It's decided.''
The fact is that we have seen this onslaught in recent years.
It has continued since Roe v. Wade. I've fought against efforts
to overturn Roe in my career as have a number of my colleagues
who are here today. Antiabortion politicians stop at nothing to
limit and even outright ban abortion care using cruel,
deceptive, and inflammatory language just to score political
points.
There is a racial justice issue at the core of these
attacks on Roe v. Wade. The closure of clinics, which often
provide essential contraceptive care and health screenings in
addition to abortion services, are particularly concentrated in
the South, where more than half of Black Americans reside.
Fewer than 1 in 10 abortion providers are located in
neighborhoods where the majority of residents are Black. As Dr.
Perritt explained in her written testimony, the proliferation
of antiabortion restrictions serves to deepen existing
inequities and worsen healthcare outcomes.
The Women's Health Protection Act would put an end to this
litany of State law restrictions. It would end State laws
designed to shame women trying to access healthcare by imposing
paternalistic waiting periods and biased counseling
requirements. It would end laws that force women to endure
medically unnecessary and invasive procedures and mandatory
ultrasounds. It would end so-called TRAP laws, or Targeted
Regulation of Abortion Providers, such as minimum measurements
for room size and corridor width that have no rationale, no
basis other than transparent desire to curtail access. It would
end laws that require providers to offer medically inaccurate
information when providing abortion care.
Today, you're going to hear a lot of misinformation and
distortions about what this bill does. You will hear, frankly,
paternalistic claims that restricting abortion is good for
women's health. You will hear that science is on the side of
abortion restrictions. You will hear that States have the right
to outlaw abortion. We know none of it is true. Restrictions
only serve to delay and impede women's healthcare decisions and
make it more costly, sometimes pushing it out of reach
entirely.
The abortion restrictions we are seeing at the State level
are widely opposed by leading medical societies, including the
American Medical Association and American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists. This bill, very simply, aims
to restore a future where all of us, all of us, are free to
make the personal decisions that shape our lives, our futures,
our families, with dignity and respect, without political
interference in a decision to be made between a patient and a
doctor.
I think we've had enough. We've had enough with meddling
politicians getting between Americans and their healthcare
decisions. We've had enough of the shameful assaults on
people's freedoms and futures. The time is now for the Women's
Health Protection Act. I now yield to the Ranking Member.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Forty-eight years
ago, the Supreme Court created a right to abortion that had
never before existed, that had never received a vote from the
American people, that could never have been imagined by the
drafters of the Constitution. As Justice Thomas recently wrote,
the Supreme Court, quote, ``created the right to abortion out
of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the
Constitution's text.''
Since that tragic decision, over 62 million unborn children
have lost their lives. That's 62 million little boys and little
girls who never got the chance to breathe a breath of fresh
air, never got to laugh, never got to play, never got to grow
up to be scientists, to be inventors, to be athletes, to be
poets, to be artists. Sixty-two million souls that never got
the chance to live their own unique lives.
Protecting human life is the central responsibility of the
law, and yet those who are most vulnerable, the unborn, are
completely unable to speak for themselves. As Ronald Reagan
once quipped, ``I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion
has already been born.''
Thankfully, across the country, State legislatures are
taking significant and important steps to protect unborn life.
Since 2019, 13 States, for example, have banned abortions at 6
weeks based on the presence of a fetal heartbeat. Just last
month, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill banning
abortion after the detection of fetal cardiac activity. Several
other States have passed so-called trigger laws that would ban
abortion if the Supreme Court ever returns to the original
meaning of the Constitution and overturns Roe.
I've been proud to stand for life throughout my career and
strongly support laws that protect life. At the same time, I
understand that abortion is a deeply personal issue on which
passions run high and that State laws protecting life from
conception or from the presence of a heartbeat are
controversial. Many State laws protecting life, laws that
protect unborn life from the most inhumane abuses and
atrocities, should be completely uncon-
troversial. I want to highlight three examples of these
commonsense laws.
First are laws that protect infants who are born alive, who
are breathing and crying outside the womb after surviving an
attempted abortion procedure. This year alone, the States of
Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Wyoming have passed laws
requiring physicians to provide medical care to these infants,
because protecting a child who is born alive shouldn't be even
remotely controversial.
Second are laws that protect unborn children from being
killed by horrific dismemberment abortions. These abortions,
known as dilation and evacuation, or D&E abortions, are
horrendous. They have no place in civilized society. In these
abortions, a physician cuts and rips apart the unborn child's
body and extracts, piece by piece, arm by arm, leg by leg, what
moments before had been a living human being. The unborn child
dies the same way as an adult would die who had been
dismembered, by bleeding to death as his or her body is torn
apart. If an individual murdered an animal in this way, tearing
apart a kitten or a puppy, everyone would understandably be
horrified and demand that individual be prosecuted. How can it
be that unborn children should be protected less than animals?
Third are laws that protect unborn children from being
killed because of their immutable characteristics such as race,
sex, or disability status. These are antieugenics laws, plain
and simple. Right now, 67 percent of babies prenatally
diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted.
That's sickening, and it harkens back to the ugly eugenics
legacy of Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, who
pointed to that as a positive feature of abortion, with truly
sickening candor.
All of these are commonsense laws, laws that every American
should be able to support, but today's elected Democrats are so
radical, so hostile to unborn life, that they not only oppose
these laws, they are working to protect these inhumane acts.
Senator Blumenthal's bill, the misleadingly named Women's
Health Protection Act, would make sure that physicians can
refuse medical treatment to infants who survive an abortion. It
would make sure that unborn children can be aborted by tearing
them limb from limb. It would make sure that unborn children
diagnosed with Down syndrome can be terminated because of their
disability.
This is inhumane. It goes much further than even the deeply
mistaken proabortion cases from the Supreme Court. I want to be
very clear that Senator Blumenthal's bill isn't simply a
codification of Roe and existing abortion law. Codifying
existing law, I believe, would be a tremendous mistake, but it
wouldn't immediately change anything. States would still be
able to enact and enforce numerous laws protecting unborn life.
No, Senator Blumenthal's law is much more extreme. Even Roe
recognized that States have an interest in protecting potential
human life. It's what Senator Blumenthal's former boss, Justice
Blackmun, wrote in the majority opinion. That's why the Supreme
Court upheld a Federal ban on partial-birth abortion. It
recognized the value of protecting unborn life. Senator
Blumenthal's bill completely disregards the value of human life
in favor of unlimited abortion on demand. Under his bill, if a
law addresses abortion and doesn't expand abortion rights, it's
illegal. End of discussion. Courts can't even consider the fact
that abortion ends the life of a human living person, often in
horrific, inhumane ways.
We can't lose sight of what abortion really is. It is the
ending of a human life. From the first moments in the womb, a
child has his or her own unique DNA. After only a few weeks, an
unborn child has a heartbeat. After only 20 weeks, an unborn
child's toes and eyelids and fingernails have already formed,
and that child can feel pain, excruciating pain.
As I said at the opening, since Roe was decided, 62 million
unborn children have lost their lives to abortion. For
supporters of Senator Blumenthal's legislation, 62 million
apparently isn't enough. For me, it is 62 million too many
because every life is a precious, unique gift from God.
Today's elected Democrats have decided, on the issue of
abortion, that nothing is too extreme for them. The position of
virtually every elected Democrat in the U.S. Senate, including
the President of the United States and the commonsense Vice
President of the United States, is they support unlimited
abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, partial-birth
abortion, with taxpayer funding, with no parental consent and
no parental notification.
That is an extreme, radical view far out of step with the
American people. Indeed, just 9 percent of Americans agree with
that radical view. Ninety-one percent say, ``That goes too
far.'' In today's Democratic party, that is the orthodoxy, the
radical orthodoxy that they would force on the entire country
and that they would use to strike down any State laws
protecting human life.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Cruz. I'm going to
leave to our witnesses the task of correcting a number of the
statements that you've made, and I'm going to introduce them
now.
Dr. Jamila Perritt is an obstetrician and gynecologist who
practices in the Washington, DC area. Dr. Perritt is the CEO of
Physicians for Reproductive Health, an organization of medical
professionals working to improve reproductive healthcare. Dr.
Perritt has a comprehensive background in family planning and
has worked for more than 20 years in providing on-the-ground
community-based care focusing primarily on the intersection of
sexual health, reproductive rights, and social justice.
Professor Michele Goodwin is a chancellor's professor at
the University of California, Irvine, and founding director of
the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is
the recipient of a 2021 distinguished senior faculty award for
research, the highest honor bestowed by the University of
California, and the first law professor at the University of
California, Irvine, to receive this award. She is an expert in
legal issues surrounding the constituent health law, bioethics,
race, and reproductive rights and justice.
Tohan, who would prefer that her last name not be used, is
a mother, businesswoman, and immigrant from Nigeria who lives
in Texas. She received her bachelor's degree in finance and
business administration, as well as a master's degree in
business administration, from Park University in Parkville,
Missouri, and she will tell her personal story.
Catherine Glenn Foster is president and CEO of Americans
United for Life. Ms. Foster has previously testified before the
Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Energy and
Commerce. She has earned her JD at Georgetown University Law
Center and holds an MA in French from the University of South
Florida.
Melissa Ohden is the founder and director of the Abortion
Survivors Network and the Abortion Survivors Network Education
and Policy Center. She is a master's-level-prepared social
worker with experience in the fields of mental health,
substance abuse treatment, domestic violence, and sexual
assault counseling and child welfare. She resides in Kansas
City, Missouri.
As is our custom, I'm going to ask the witnesses to stand
and be sworn for this proceeding. If you would rise.
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Thank you. Let's turn first to Dr. Jamila Perritt, who
joins us remotely.
STATEMENT OF JAMILA PERRITT, PRESIDENT AND
CEO, PHYSICIANS FOR REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH,
WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Perritt. Good afternoon, Chairman Blumenthal, Ranking
Member Cruz, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. As
was mentioned, my name is Dr. Perritt, and I am a board-
certified, fellowship-trained obstetrician and gynecologist,
the president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health.
We're a network of doctors around the country working to ensure
access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.
I'm here today to talk with you about the people my
colleagues and I take care of every day, people who are working
to care for themselves and their communities. The Women's
Health Protection Act is a critical step to eliminating
existing disparities in access to abortion care. As a
physician, I find it unconscionable that politicians and
pundits paint abortion as a hopelessly divisive issue, when in
fact it is a deeply personal decision, rooted in autonomy,
self-determination, health, and well-being.
When ideology takes the place of medical care and science,
my patients suffer. When States block access to those
restrictions, things like waiting periods, senseless clinic
regulations, prohibitions on telehealth, among many others,
these fall most heavily on those who already face the most
barriers to care. Black, indigenous, and other people of color,
immigrants, young people, LGBTQ+ folks, as well as those in
rural areas, bear the brunt of these ideological battles at the
expense of their dignity and their health.
I want to be clear. Abortion is healthcare. Abortion should
not be singled out for exclusion or have additional
administrative or financial burdens placed upon it. ACOG, along
with other medical societies, identifies abortion as an
essential healthcare service that requires timely access to
care. ACOG also explicitly recommends the repeal of legislation
that imposes barriers to access and interferes with the
patient-provider relationship, including abortion bans,
mandatory waiting periods, biased counseling, and medically
unnecessary ultrasounds. These are the type of provisions that
the Women's Health Protection Act would help protect against,
and we desperately need these protections. Our patients need
these protections.
Abortion is extremely safe, and none of the arbitrary
barriers I just mentioned make it safer. In fact, in 2018, the
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
published a study affirming the safety record of abortion and
pointed out that the biggest threat to patient safety is the
medically unnecessary regulations that delay procedures,
putting patients' health at risk. They confirm what we already
know: abortion is safe, and restrictions like the ones WHPA
helps stop make it less safe. As a healthcare provider, it is
abhorrent to me that the laws restricting abortion are passed
under the pretense of making abortion safe when they actually
do the opposite.
Restrictions on abortion care have far-reaching
consequences, both deepening existing inequities and worsening
health outcomes for pregnant people and those giving birth. For
example, women who are denied abortion care are more likely to
experience serious medical conditions during the end of their
pregnancy, more likely to remain in relationships where
violence is present, and more likely to experience poverty.
Research shows that States with higher numbers of abortion
restrictions are the same States with poor maternal health
outcomes. When abortion is difficult or impossible to access,
maternal health suffers, and it is disingenuous for politicians
to claim that they care about our Nation's ongoing maternal
health crisis and in the same breath attempt to limit access to
abortion care through unnecessary regulation and restriction.
The communities that face the most barriers to accessing
abortion care are the same communities that are unable to
access high quality prenatal care.
Federal legislation is urgently needed to improve both
health outcomes for people having abortions and those giving
birth. It is undeniable we have a two-tiered system of care in
the U.S., and it's getting worse. The stakes are as high as
they have ever been. We are only beginning to emerge from an
ongoing pandemic that has disproportionately harmed our
communities, and we continue to reckon with racial injustice
and the systemic killing of Black people by law enforcement.
These measures to restrict and criminalize abortion are yet
another form of reproductive oppression that people of color
have been subject to for centuries. As we fight to address
inequities and injustice at all levels, we must understand that
for our communities, losing the fragile protections of Roe
would be devastating. To be clear, Roe is not enough, but the
undermining of Roe, without a law like WHPA to provide a
backstop, would mean the enactment of these laws criminalizing
me, my colleagues, the care we provide, and my patients.
I went to medical school to become a doctor, to take care
of my community. We deserve more than this. This is not care.
This is not justice. When 12 Black women coined the term
``reproductive justice,'' they affirmed that every person has
the right to bodily autonomy, to have children, to not have
children, and to parent our children in safe communities. As a
doctor and a Black woman, when I think about the care my
community needs and deserves, I know that access to abortion is
essential for healthy, free lives.
The time for this Subcommittee to act is now. My patients
deserve support. They deserve autonomy and agency. These are
medical decisions, and my job as a doctor is to support their
decision. No one should be controlling their health and their
future except them. Laws like the ones WHPA would protect
against are not about healthcare or safety. They are about
control. Politics has no place in the healthcare I provide, and
I urge Members of the Subcommittee to take this important step
and support the Women's Health Protection Act before access to
abortion deteriorates further. The lives of my patients and my
colleagues' patients, as well as our communities, depend on it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Perritt appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you very much, Dr. Perritt. I'd
like to turn to, now, Professor Michele Goodwin.
STATEMENT OF MICHELE GOODWIN, PROFESSOR
OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
SCHOOL OF LAW, IRVINE, CALIFORNIA
Professor Goodwin. Subcommittee Chairman Blumenthal,
Subcommittee Ranking Member Cruz, and distinguished Members of
the Senate Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on The
Constitution, thank you for inviting me to participate in
today's hearing on the Women's Health Protection Act.
My name is Michele Bratcher Goodwin. I am a chancellor's
professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the
founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global
Health Policy. I write and teach in the areas of constitutional
law and health law. My scholarship is published in the Harvard
Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Texas Law Review, amongst
others, and in books, most recently, ``Policing the Womb:
Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.''
Today I'm here to speak about WHPA and preserving Roe.
Preserving Roe is certainly not enough, but it is also not a
lofty academic matter but one of great urgency. A woman is 14
times more likely to die in childbirth than by having an
abortion. In States most aggressively legislating against
abortion rights, the maternal mortality rates are devastatingly
high and reflect glaring, grotesque racial disparities. This is
a critical aspect of the new ``Jane Crow.''
In 1851, Sojourner Truth delivered a speech that's known as
``Ain't I a Woman?'' to a very crowded audience. Ms. Truth
pleaded, ``I have borne 13 children and seen most all sold off
to slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none
but Jesus heard me. Ain't I a woman?''
Senators, 170 years later, the relevance of Ms. Truth's
plea endures. The ink remains wet on that famous oration. Ms.
Truth's speech remains a timeless appeal, because Black women
continue to struggle against efforts to deny them reproductive
autonomy and independence, including that guaranteed by the
Constitution. What's old is new again. The picture that I paint
for you is on a canvas that unravels beyond the reaches of
slavery and into the 20th and 21st centuries. Women's
reproduction has become the euphemistic football in legislative
politics.
The Women's Health Protection Act deserves your attention
and support. It would establish Federal statutory abortion
rights for providers and patients. Enacting WHPA could trigger
the repeal or striking down of the kinds of harmful laws you've
already heard about that infringe on abortion access, whose
purpose and effect is to make it difficult for pregnant persons
to access care.
This specifically includes requirements for multiple
medically unnecessary in-person visits, requirements that
doctors provide their patients with medically inaccurate
information, requirements that providers perform medically
unnecessary tests and procedures, and unnecessary building
requirements that have the purpose and effect of shutting down
clinics that not only provide abortion services but also
contraception, breast cancer and ovarian cancer screenings, and
STI testing.
WHPA creates an enforcement mechanism through public and
private rights of action similar to civil rights and
antidiscrimination laws. This mechanism allows the U.S.
Attorney General, a clinician, or a patient to challenge
violations of WHPA in court. Congress has the power to protect
pregnant people now. Under section 5 of the 14th Amendment,
Congress has the authority to enact legislation when State laws
infringe upon or deny the exercise of constitutionally
protected rights. This is the important action Congress took
when it enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to protect the
right to vote.
Congress expressly exercised its section 5 authority to
protect access to abortion service and healthcare providers'
ability to provide abortion services when it enacted the
Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances Act in 1994. Congress
also has authority under the Commerce Clause to protect access
to abortion. Abortion services are, like other healthcare, as
Dr. Perritt mentioned, a form of healthcare. It is also a form
of commercial and economic activity.
Enacting WHPA will be a substantial improvement in the wake
of the unrelenting attacks on reproductive health and rights.
The challenges to reproductive health, rights, and justice in
the United States are longstanding and manifold. Forced and
coerced sterilization, lack of sex education in high schools,
criminal prosecutions and sanctions against poor pregnant
women, and high maternal mortality are part of this landscape
and our U.S. history.
Reproductive justice requires every individual to have the
right to make their own decisions about having children
regardless of their circumstances and without interference and
criminalization. It is time to enact the Women's Health
Protection Act. By passing this legislation, you will protect
millions of Americans from harmful abortion restrictions that
infringe on rights, burden health, and trample dignity. Thank
you very much.
[The prepared statement of Professor Goodwin appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you very, very much, Professor
Goodwin. We'll hear, remotely, as well, from Tohan.
STATEMENT OF TOHAN, STORYTELLER, TEXAS, USA
Ms. Tohan. Good afternoon, and thank you to Chairman
Blumenthal and Ranking Member Cruz, for this opportunity to
testify about my experience trying to obtain an abortion in the
State of Texas.
My name is Tohan. I am a mom, an immigrant, a minister's
daughter, and I have had an abortion. In 2018, I was in a
relationship that threatened my life and my future. My fiance
was abusive and threatening. I realized that I did not want to
be married to him. If I did not leave when I did, I may not
ever have been able to. I canceled our wedding 3 weeks before
the date. I felt so alone, but I knew I made the right choice
for me and my son.
During all of this, I realized I was pregnant. I felt in my
bones that I could not continue the pregnancy. I took a leap of
faith and confided in my father, a minister, who helped protect
me from my abuser, but we kept it a secret from the rest of my
family. I am from Nigeria, and the culture is generally
conservative, and the way women are treated limits our decision
making and futures. My decision is considered an abomination by
all Nigerian standards.
When I was 13 years old, my close friend secretly had an
abortion. It was an unsafe procedure performed by the
pharmaceutical salesman who lived down the street. She almost
died. When I needed my abortion, I found myself in my friend's
shoes. I was close to graduating with my MBA, but I missed some
finals due to the stress. Like my friend, I needed an abortion,
even if a dangerous pharmaceutical salesman was my only option.
To find an abortion, I searched the internet for abortion
clinics and DIY abortions. I bought castor oil in case I needed
to do it myself. I finally found a clinic that I thought
provided abortions. When I arrived, they preached to me that
God does not agree with my choices.
I have my own relationship with God. I do not need someone
else telling me what God thinks of me. They told me to place
the baby for adoption. Like most people having abortions, I
already have a child. I know what pregnancy is like, and I know
what being a parent entails. They preached about choices, but I
did not feel like I had one while I was there.
When I finally left, I started searching again for an
abortion clinic. I found a clinic in Houston. I was scared that
it might be another fake clinic. I spoke with a kind counselor
who talked to me about all my options. She had to tell me that
abortion is dangerous and it can affect my ability to have
kids. I know research shows that's not true, but the State of
Texas required her to tell me that anyway. I had to have an
ultrasound. I did not want to, but the State made me. The nurse
told me I could look away if I wanted to, but no matter what,
they had to do it and describe what they saw.
During the ultrasound, they told me how far along I was. I
learned that, at 13 weeks, the cost of abortion would go down--
the cost of abortion would go up, and the availability of
providers would go down. I was ready, but I had to wait another
day because of the law.
Then, the abortion was not covered under my health
insurance. The abortion cost $850. I had $120 in my bank
account. Thankfully, a clinic worker gave me the business card
for Clinic Access Support Network, an organization that helped
me through the process. They bought me meals, gave me a ride to
the clinic, and checked in to make sure I was fine. They were
the best part of the whole experience.
To pay for my abortion, I had to take out two different
online payday loans, each with a 400 percent interest. I did
not realize how predatory payday loan companies are in this
country. I kept making payments, and the balance never dropped.
Once I paid one off, I defaulted on the other because I
couldn't pay it. It cost me thousands of dollars to get a
basic, constitutionally protected, 10-minute medical procedure,
all because my insurance would not cover it.
Senators, I'm asking you to pass the Women's Health
Protection Act. We need a Federal law to protect us from these
medically unnecessary laws that delay our access to abortion
care and make the experience really difficult. We deserve
medically accurate information. We deserve to have our
appointments as soon as we make our decision. We deserve
abortion care in our communities.
I am thankful for my abortion because it allowed me to
leave my abuser. It allowed me to care for my son and move on
with my life. I am thankful that my professors later allowed me
to make up the classwork to earn my degree, but it shouldn't
have been that way. Something we say, we testify, is,
``Everyone loves someone who had an abortion.'' I hope my story
helps you remember that the laws that you pass impact your
constituents like me and your loved ones who've had abortions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Tohan appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks very much. I'd like to turn now to
Catherine Glenn Foster.
STATEMENT OF CATHERINE FOSTER, PRESIDENT
AND CEO, AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Foster. America's culture war began in earnest with Roe
v. Wade. It began with our decision to kill, and it will not
end until we stop the killing. Yet today, what the judiciary
wrongly imposed with abortion culture, you propose to enshrine.
Every act of violence that Washington promotes leaves blood on
the hands of the American people.
Abortion is violence. I've felt it. Every act of violence
that our Nation condones leaves blood on the hands of the
American people and pits us against so much that we know to be
true. Abortion runs against our scientific knowledge, against a
global consensus in favor of limits on abortion, and against
commonsense about the origin of human life. We should be a
better people. Today, we must choose to be better.
The Women's Health Protection Act would effectively ban all
life-saving State protections for women considering abortion,
including those upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme
Court. This bill would wipe away protections for women, for
children before viability, and even for many late-term, viable
children. These include protections from dangerous and painful
late-term abortion, laws that prevent children from being
eugenically aborted because they may have Down syndrome, and
laws guaranteeing that children born alive during an abortion
are provided with basic medical care.
Informed consent standards, gone. Health and safety
standards, gone. As a legal and constitutional expert, I can
say that this misguided bill would invalidate hundreds of
constitutionally sound State laws that have been debated,
passed, and enacted in States from coast-to-coast in an effort
to protect America's youngest citizens.
We are all connected through what MLK described as our
``inescapable network of mutuality'' by our duties and rights
to support and to care. Healthcare, by the way, is a heavily
regulated industry because patient protections matter. And
although abortion is not healthcare, this bill would treat it
like healthcare, except without the same oversight or patient
protections.
We know from data and from experience that abortionists
cannot be trusted to look after our well-being. I know this all
too well. I so wish that the abortion facility that I walked
into when I was just 19 years old had been regulated by the
basic community protections that this Congress seeks to
destroy. Instead, the abortionists were free to take advantage
of my youth, of my trust of doctors, and, frankly, of my
naivety. They took my money, my agency, my child, and an
irreplaceable part of my health and well-being as a woman. They
gave me no information and no support, and they rushed me out
the door. No doctor-patient relationship, no informed consent,
no medical care.
This is my story, and it's the story of countless American
women, past, present, and if this Congress succeeds, future.
Just in the last few years, we have witnessed killers like
Kermit Gosnell and Ulrich Klopfer who are responsible for the
deaths of women and who engaged in practices that not even
Planned Parenthood defends. For decades, Ulrich Klopfer was one
of the most prolific abortionists in the Midwest. Not until his
death was it discovered that he had been hoarding the bodies of
thousands of children that he had killed in abortions: bodies
in his basement, bodies in his garage, bodies in his car.
We published the groundbreaking report, ``Unsafe,'' at
Americans United for Life, to reveal the everyday tragedy of
abortion, but wherever an abortionist disposes of the corpses
of their victims, the truth is evident. The crime against
justice that this Congress would sanction remains the same.
This bill is premised on lies. It degrades and attacks the
dignity of women, and it puts all women, and especially Black,
indigenous, and people of color, at risk. As a mother, I am
insulted. As a post-abortive woman, I am frightened. As a legal
expert, I am appalled. This is, at its core, a bill of hate
that must be rejected wholesale. This bill would be the
greatest setback for the rights of women and children since the
abomination of Roe v. Wade. On behalf of American women and
families, I ask you, do better. The American people deserve
better. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Foster appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. We'll now hear from Melissa
Ohden.
STATEMENT OF MELISSA OHDEN, FOUNDER
AND DIRECTOR, ABORTION SURVIVORS NETWORK,
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
Ms. Ohden. Senator Blumenthal, Senator Cruz, and Members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to this hearing
titled ``Protecting Roe: Why We Need the Women's Health
Protection Act.''
Abortion is currently legal under Roe jurisprudence. The
premise of today's hearing that has been intentionally
propagated by certain people through the years since Roe is
that abortion is not just legal but a fundamental right. I'm
here today, however, to challenge that premise with personal
experience, professional knowledge, and expand upon this
narrative, to ensure the Committee responsibly considers
additional information.
With this additional perspective, I encourage you to ask
yourself, how can access to abortion, the very act that should
have ended my life, simultaneously be my fundamental right to
exercise? Life is the foundation of all other rights. The very
fact that this hearing is being held shows that everyone in
this room was granted the privilege to retain that right, a
privilege I was denied, a privilege my unprotected population
of abortion survivors were denied, a right that thousands of
unborn children will be denied the privilege of having, today
alone, the privilege of having a day you were born, not a day
you were aborted, the privilege of a birthday, not a day you
were accidentally born alive after the abortion failed. I know
this is an issue we're all passionate about, but this privilege
is one that's really easy for most people to overlook.
The abortion industry speaks ambiguously about the science
of when life begins and what abortion does, but the reality is
much clearer. You were as much you in your mother's womb as you
were the day you were born and as you are today, and I was as
much me, 43 years ago when I was targeted for abortion, as I am
today. My earliest stages, though, were very different than
yours, because they were interrupted by abortion.
In August 1977, my biological mother, a 19-year-old college
student named Ruth, had a saline infusion abortion forced upon
her by her mother, a prominent nurse in their community, with
the help of her colleague, the local abortionist. This
procedure involved injecting a toxic salt solution into the
amniotic fluid meant to protect my fragile body, to instead
poison and scald me to death. I soaked in that toxic salt
solution for 5 days, as they tried, time and time again, to
induce Ruth's labor with me.
When I was finally expelled from the womb on that fifth
day, my arrival into this world was not so much a birth but an
accident, a live birth after a saline-infusion abortion. My
medical records state, ``A saline infusion for an abortion was
done but was unsuccessful.'' Another record identifies a
complication of Ruth's pregnancy as that saline-infusion
abortion. My medical records reflect the doctors initially
suspected that I had a fatal heart defect because of the amount
of fetal distress I presented with.
My grandmother demanded that I be left to die, but I am
grateful for the nurse working that day, who was unwilling to
do so and rushed me off to the NICU. Before you vilify my
grandmother for that demand, note that I've learned from two
nurses that that was common practice at St. Luke's Hospital. I
know that it was common practice for children like me, who
survived abortions, to be placed in the utility closet to be
left to die. This was not an isolated incident. This was common
practice.
I suffered from severe respiratory problems, jaundice,
seizures. I weighed 2 pounds 14 ounces, which is what led a
neonatologist to remark in my records he estimated I was
probably more like 31 weeks' gestation, not the 18 to 20 weeks
that the abortionist had indicated. I can tell you I hear this
quite frequently in my population of abortion survivors that we
work with through the Abortion Survivors Network. Many
survivors are alive, like me, because they were much more
gestationally advanced than the abortionist assessed.
This is not a thing of the past. In fact, I'll share just
one example of this that occurred last spring. An abortion was
performed on a young woman, with the abortionist indicating he
estimated her to be about 19 to 20 weeks pregnant. After
experiencing severe pain when the laminaria were inserted to
dilate her cervix for the abortion, she changed her mind and
didn't return. Her labor continued to progress, however, and
her baby was born at approximately 25 weeks' gestation. That
survivor is still alive today.
All abortion survivors' stories are critically important.
We're citizens of this country who were denied their basic
right to life. We're members of a marginalized, unprotected
population that continue to experience trauma as abortion
access is lauded as a right to be pursued, as our tax dollars
go to fund the very act meant to end our lives, which has left
deep emotional, mental, and, for many, physical scars, as our
experiences and suffering are overlooked or played down as
political fodder. Every story is important. Every experience
deserves to be heard. However, when we hear stories about
abortion, the narrative is woefully one-sided.
I'm here today to ask if there is space in this abortion
narrative for stories like mine, the men and women who are
alive today after surviving failed abortion procedures. Is
there space in the abortion narrative for stories like my birth
mother's, women who've been coerced or forced? Is there space
for mothers who experience failed abortions? Do we ever create
space for the stories of women who regret their abortions? What
would happen if we did?
In closing, I would ask you to consider with me a lingering
question that I wrestle with every single day. How do you
reconcile my rights as a woman who survived a failed abortion
with what's being discussed here today? We must have a
conversation about this going forward in our country. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ohden appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you very much. We'll have a
beginning round of 5-minute questions. The vote has been
called, so I'll ask my questions and then call on at least one
colleague, and we can take a recess if necessary.
Contrary to some of the misstatements that have been made
already--for example, that the Women's Health Protection Act
would abolish all life-saving protections or eliminate all
health and safety standards, I'm quoting almost exactly--in
fact, the Women's Health Protection Act would stop only
medically unnecessary restrictions on this right. Nearly half
the States have imposed TRAP laws, Targeted Regulations of
Abortion Providers, which impose onerous requirements on
facilities and providers that do nothing to further health
outcomes and make it nearly impossible for healthcare providers
to keep their doors open. In fact, they interfere with
healthcare, they raise dangers and risks to healthcare, and
they impede access to healthcare.
I'd like to ask Dr. Perritt--you've experienced firsthand
the tremendous impact of these TRAP laws on patient care. Can
you tell us how these laws affect healthcare providers' ability
to provide quality abortion care to patients?
Dr. Perritt. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that
question. You know, when I applied to, was admitted, and spent
time in medical school and residency training, I had no idea
that I would be called upon to comment on the impact of
political interference in the medical care we're providing.
The legislative efforts known as TRAP laws, the ones that
you--like the ones you describe, absolutely are designed to
eliminate access to abortion care for those who need it. What
that means is that providers like me are, as Tohan mentioned,
forced to give medically inaccurate information. People are
made to travel hundreds of miles, sometimes, to seek care that
others are able to obtain in their own community.
It absolutely creates a two-tiered system of healthcare
that means that it's absolutely dependent on where you live,
how much money you make. Often, that's deeply tied to your race
and ethnicity, whether or not you can obtain the same care that
someone else may--who is more financially stable, who lives in
a more liberal State, may be able to obtain.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. These restrictions, which are
enacted misleadingly and deceptively in the name of healthcare,
in fact, interfere with the ability to provide it with quality
and reliability, cause delay, increase cost, require additional
visits, decrease availability, impose discriminatory penalties,
and have a cumulative impact.
Let me ask Professor Goodwin, in your experience, have you
found that these absurd and unnecessary restrictions serve any
real purpose to protect women's healthcare?
Professor Goodwin. No, they do not, Senator Blumenthal.
Thank you very much for that question. The tragedy is that the
United States leads the industrial world in maternal mortality.
These are cases where people are continuing their pregnancy to
term. There is research that is reported that Texas is the
deadliest place in the developed world for a person to be
pregnant because of the very aggressive legislating that has
taken place in Texas which has resulted in the closure of
clinics that perform not only abortions but that actually
provide prenatal care, contraception, and cancer screenings.
When you look at it in terms of race and whether the lives
of women of color matter and Black women's lives matter, what
you notice is that, nationwide, the maternal mortality rate for
Black women is 3.5 times more than that of white women. When
you look more deeply and unpack what this looks like in States
that have been aggressively engaged in antiabortion
legislating, you find things like in Mississippi, a State which
you've mentioned, it is nearly 188 times more dangerous for a
Black woman to give birth than it is for them to have an
abortion in that State.
What you find in places like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and other States--many of these States had a legacy of slavery,
too, and Jim Crow--you find it far more dangerous for Black
people to be pregnant, for women, generally, to be pregnant,
and then particularly for Black women.
No, these laws do not protect women's health. They do not
preserve their dignity at all. Instead, sadly, it has been a
death sentence, in many ways. I don't use that as hyperbole. If
we take seriously the narratives of people who have died,
including data that comes from these very States' health
departments, it is a tragedy. And one only needs to look at the
data produced in the States of Texas, by government in the
State of Mississippi, in Louisiana, to confirm exactly what I'm
sharing with you and what I've presented in my written
testimony.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you very much.
Professor Goodwin. Thank you.
Chair Blumenthal. I'm--I have questions that I'm going to
ask other witnesses, including Tohan. I want to turn now to
Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm
really sorry that we have reached this day here. I remember the
time well when abortion was essentially illegal in the United
States. I know of women who have ended their lives. I saw, you
know, the plate being passed at Stanford, where I lived, so a
woman could go to Mexico for her abortion. Nearly 50 years
after the Supreme Court guaranteed the right to safe and legal
abortion, it's still unfortunate that women's reproductive
rights are considered an issue that's up for debate. I believe
that deeply.
So far, in 2021, State lawmakers across the country have
introduced 561 abortion restriction bills in State
legislatures. Eighty-three of those have been signed into law.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about Mississippi's
restricted abortion law. Many observers, including myself, are
concerned that the Supreme Court could use this case to
overturn or diminish the protections established in Roe.
Let me ask Dr. Perritt a question. Texas recently passed a
law that would ban all abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy. Is
there any medical justification for a law like this which would
limit the flexibility of a patient and her doctor to make the
healthcare decisions that are best for the patient?
Dr. Perritt. Thank you for that question. That's an easy
answer. The answer is no. None of these restrictions are based
on any medically--medical evidence at all. They're not based on
any science. They absolutely do not protect the health and
safety of the folks that are seeking care. The idea that they
would do so is not supported by the medical evidence, and as I
mentioned in my written and my oral testimony, it actually does
the opposite. It makes care less safe. It increases the risk of
complications during pregnancy and decreases the likelihood
that individuals will be able to go on to live lives that are
productive and safe and healthy and allow them to be well.
Senator Feinstein. This year--if I could ask another
question. This year alone, 16 States have enacted 83 abortion
restrictions. These new laws impact 58 percent of women in the
United States from ages 13 to 44. These restrictions, that vary
by State, mean that a woman's access to safe reproductive
healthcare is largely dependent on her zip code. I'm just
amazed at this, Dr. Perritt. As a provider, how do you see
these inconsistencies across States impact women you treat?
Dr. Perritt. Too many people, unfortunately, lack access to
essential healthcare services, including abortion care. We
know, as Dr.--as Professor Goodwin mentioned, that the same
States that are enacting these restrictions on abortion access
have the worst records in reproductive health and well-being
for the folks in their own States. It has a direct impact.
I provide care in the Washington, DC area that includes
Maryland and Virginia, and the legislation across those States
are vastly different, even though the actual geography is not
that far apart. What that means, if you live in Virginia, if
you live in Maryland, if you live in the District, your
experience of accessing abortion care, this constitutionally
protected right, is going to be extremely different and solely
based on your zip code. You are absolutely right. It has
devastating impacts on agency, on autonomy, on self-
determination for the community that I care for.
I grew up here in DC, and I practice here by intention
because I believe that the community that raised me, that made
me, absolutely deserves access to the same healthcare that
anyone else would be able to provide and have it done so in a
way that is compassionate, caring, community grounded, and
grounded deeply in principles of justice and equity.
Senator Feinstein. It's my understanding that--well, I
think I asked you that question. Let me go to one other
question. Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case
that could dramatically change a woman's access to reproductive
healthcare. Several States have trigger laws in place that
would impose abortion bans if Roe is overturned. Dr. Goodwin,
how could the Supreme Court decision alter a woman's access in
this regard?
Professor Goodwin. The unfortunate times that you have
mentioned are upon us today. It's important to recognize that
there has long been bipartisan support for abortion rights. Roe
v. Wade was a 7-to-2 opinion written by Justice Blackmun. Five
of the seven Justices at that time were Republican appointed.
Prescott Bush, who was treasurer of Planned Parenthood, the
father of George Bush I----
When you think about where the Supreme Court is today, it
means that Roe is vulnerable, and it's vulnerable by death by a
thousand strikes. These laws which you have mentioned have been
a proliferation as an attempt to do away with abortion rights,
but it's been a euphemistic football for political
gerrymandering with regard to abortion rights. What WHPA does
is it protects all people across the country, regardless of
their race, regardless of their socioeconomic status,
regardless of their zip code, in being able to receive
fundamental healthcare, which this is.
I want to make one other point, which is that the World
Health Organization has long established that an abortion is as
safe as a penicillin shot, so we should really begin there.
What is the purpose of this legislating, when we know that
these are safe procedures? Individuals should not be denied
access to this healthcare simply because of the State in which
they live. These trigger laws disproportionately affect poor
women, poor people who have the potential to become pregnant.
That is unconstitutional.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much. I think you've made
a very good case, and I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Feinstein. Thanks for
being here today. I'd like to turn to Tohan. A number of our
colleagues will be joining us, and we are in the middle of
votes right now, so we probably will have to take a short
recess at some point within the next few minutes, but I do want
to thank Tohan for being with us and sharing this very, very
powerful story.
Your testimony underscores the real-world impacts of the
growing number of burdensome restrictions, medically
unnecessary, unnecessary restrictions that simply are political
interference with reproductive rights. I know, for example, you
tried to search for a clinic. You searched online, but you were
duped into visiting what is called a crisis pregnancy center,
which in reality is an antiabortion clinic with no
professionals, no medical professionals, on staff. When you
finally found and arrived at the real clinic, were you allowed
to obtain an abortion on that same day?
Ms. Tohan. Thank you, Senator, for that question. No, I was
not. I was told to come back, that I needed to speak with a
counselor. That was another appointment. I had, in total, about
three different appointments. I was in a race for time and a
race to save my life. I was in a race to save the life of the
people that I was responsible for. I had an obligation to
myself and to my child to make sure that we had--we were able
to live, and the unnecessary laws, all they did was really--
prolonged my problem. It prolonged, and it was--it felt like
torture. That was the----
Chair Blumenthal. Were you told that abortion might impact
your health, in fact, cause infertility?
Ms. Tohan. I was told a lot of things, including that. I
was also told that I could not be able to have kids, I could
come out without--with perforations, I believe that's what they
called it, I'm not--basically, holes in my uterus. As a matter
of fact, I remember her telling me, ``I'm required by law to
tell you this,'' and even on the day of the abortion, the
doctor had to go over it again. Even if my mind was made up and
I knew what I wanted, it was like they were--their only effort
was to stop me from actually saving myself and saving my
family, and I think that was wrong.
Chair Blumenthal. Once you were able to schedule an
abortion, you ran into another obstacle, which was the cost,
correct? You had to take out a payday loan?
Ms. Tohan. Correct. That's correct. I had to take out--not
one, I had to take out two different payday loans. I was
already saddled with debt, thousands of dollars of debt, from
the situations that I was surrounded with at the time. I was in
a hole, financially. I had health insurance, though, and I had
a lot of faith--it was not--taking a loan was not what I
thought was going to happen. I had a lot of faith in the health
system, my health insurance, and I hoped that it would--I
thought it would cover it, but it was not covered under my
insurance.
I had to take a loan at 400 percent interest rate. That was
astronomical, and it was almost impossible, like, even trying
to pay it. I ended up spending thousands of dollars for
something that should've not cost me anything, especially
because I had health insurance. It was a horrible experience
for me, financially and otherwise. It was.
Chair Blumenthal. It took you years to pay off that loan,
correct?
Ms. Tohan. It did. Yes, sir. It did.
Chair Blumenthal. It ruined your credit score?
Ms. Tohan. It did. It ruined my credit score, and it's--it
was a nightmare. I think that's the least word I can use to
categorize what I went through, because I didn't just suffer,
the law didn't just punish me during that period, it punished
me for years after my procedure, after my abortion. It punished
me for years.
Chair Blumenthal. I want to make clear, contrary, again, to
some of what you've heard here, that the Women's Health
Protection Act would not require insurance coverage. In fact, I
support a separate law. It's called the EACH Act, led by my
colleague, Senator Duckworth. The Women's Health Protection Act
would not require insurance, notwithstanding what you may have
heard, but it would remove those medically unnecessary
restrictions that caused you to face a ban on abortion
coverage.
You faced biased counseling, where your provider was forced
to lie to you about what the effects of the abortion would be
on your health in the future. You faced a mandatory waiting
period that caused the risks of the procedure to rise and the
availability to diminish, even though you had made up your mind
about getting an abortion. All of this happened after you
initially sought care or you were led to seek care at a fake
clinic. Let me hear it from you. Why is it important that these
kinds of restrictions be removed, in your view?
Ms. Tohan. Thank you, Senator, again, for that question.
When I was 13 years old, my really close friend, she had an
abortion. Like I stated earlier, it was done by a
pharmaceutical salesman who lived down the street. As I clearly
stated earlier, as well, I had considered other DIY options,
and I think most importantly, it's--we need safety, and we also
need to be heard, to understand that the rights over our bodies
are our own decisions to make, and the law couldn't protect me
when I was with my abuser. As a matter of fact, it failed to
protect me. I could--I was the only one that knew my situation
best, and considering what I went through in 2018, I wouldn't
even wish that on my enemy, and I'm hoping that we can stop
that, moving forward, and no one else has to go through that.
That is my number one goal.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. We're going to have to take a
brief recess because I have to vote. When we come back, I'm
sure there'll be colleagues on both sides of the aisle, here,
but I think Tohan and our other witnesses have shown that these
TRAP laws have in mind one goal, which is not to protect
women's health and safety. It's simply to make it harder to
seek reproductive rights and providers to keep their doors
open. We will resume this hearing in about 10 minutes. Thank
you.
[Whereupon the Subcommittee was recessed and reconvened.]
Chair Blumenthal. The Committee will come back to order
after a recess, and I'll turn to the Ranking Member for his
questions.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, to each
of the witnesses. Thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Foster, thank you for sharing your own personal
testimony. I know that was not easy. You explained that you
were denied the opportunity to review the ultrasound of your
child before the abortion procedure. Senator Blumenthal's bill
would invalidate laws that would've protected you and your
child. Can you explain how it would do that?
Ms. Foster. Absolutely. This bill would prohibit any
limitation on abortion clinics and staff unless they're
comparable to limitations on, and I quote, ``medical procedures
that are similar in terms of health and safety risks to the
patient, complexity, or the clinical setting that is
indicated.'' That is vague, and it leaves open the possibility
that the abortion industry would become completely unregulated.
There are so many States that regulate freestanding
abortion clinics in a specific way, to address the uniqueness
of that industry and to close the loopholes that have been
created, the legal loopholes created by the Supreme Court in
Roe v. Wade and its progeny; for example, the higher amount of
human tissue needing safe and sanitary disposal. This act would
not allow States to account for these differences and to close
the legal loopholes that have been created by our courts when
they're creating and enforcing oversight regulations.
This goes in blatant disregard of the State's prerogative
and circumscribes States' ability to act on their legitimate
interests. Laws that ensure that women who want to see our own
medical records, as I did, as I asked to see, are very likely
to be struck down under this bill that would not only codify
but expand Roe v. Wade.
Senator Cruz. Can you explain to us what happened with
regard to your ultrasound and what you experienced?
Ms. Foster. I can. When I was 19 years old, I walked
through the doors of the abortion facility because I thought I
was out of options. Took the pill. Paid the money, took the
pill, and they sent me back to a room where I lay down on a
table, and they began to perform an ultrasound. There was a
screen about two feet away from my face that clearly showed the
image of my child. The screen was turned away from me.
I was still--I was trying to make a decision. I was scared
and young and alone and frightened, and I had no idea what to
do or how I could possibly go through with either course of
action, but I said, ``At least let me see the image of my child
so that I can--so I can see my baby and have some kind of
further information and make that decision.'' I asked, and the
tech said, no, that it was against policy to let women and to
let girls see our ultrasounds.
We know why. It's because we change our minds when we see
our ultrasounds. We change our minds when we see the image of
our child on that screen. I wasn't given that opportunity.
Senator Cruz. There has been some testimony today that
unlimited abortion somehow benefits minority communities and
benefits the African-American community, in particular. Is that
consistent with what actually happens in this country?
Ms. Foster. It is not. First, the Women's Health Protection
Act, the so-called WHPA, and all codify-and-expand-Roe efforts
are grave laws that are about one thing: giving rights to
abortionists and violent enterprises at the expense of science,
medicine, and the human right to life. When it comes to Black,
indigenous, and people of color, in particular, and that
discussion we had about poor maternal health outcomes and
abortion regulations in States, we're confusing correlation and
causation. It is even more critical to provide a full, a
holistic spectrum of choice for women in States with poor
maternal health outcomes, and especially for Black, indigenous,
and people of color, and to raise everyone's health inequities
at all levels.
Senator Cruz. Indeed, the statistics are truly horrifying
in the African-American community, in that there have been over
18 million Black babies who've been aborted since Roe v. Wade.
That is almost the entire African-American population in the
population in the United States at the time of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s. Had Roe v. Wade not occurred, the
African-American population in the United States would be
roughly 50 percent larger. That's not surprising, when you look
to Margaret Sanger, who is the founder of Planned Parenthood
and the patron saint of the efforts of Democrats to mandate
unlimited abortion on demand.
Ms. Sanger's views--and these are quotes from her. They're
horrifying quotes. I apologize for reading them. Ms. Sanger
wrote, ``We don't want the word to go out that we want to
exterminate the Negro population.'' She also said, ``I accepted
an invitation to talk at the women's branch of the Ku Klux
Klan.'' She further said, this is a quote, ``They are human
weeds, reckless breeders spawning human beings who never should
have been born.'' These are vicious, racist, grotesque views.
That was the founder of Planned Parenthood. Indeed, her vision
for what unlimited abortion on demand would produce,
tragically, has come to pass.
A final question, Ms. Ohden. You describe the horrific
experiences you went through when you entered this world, with
the failed abortion that nearly took your life. You founded an
organization of survivors who were born alive despite an
attempt to take their life with an abortion. Can you tell this
Committee about those survivors and what you would say to
Senators who are considering striking down laws that say that a
child that is born, that is alive, that is outside the womb,
breathing and living, should not be killed but must be cared
for? Because right now, this Committee is deciding whether or
not, even after you were born, you had any right to continue
living. What would you say to Senators considering voting on
this bill?
Ms. Ohden. Thank you, Senator Cruz. We are an inconvenient
truth to the conversation about abortion, and as I testified
too today, there is privilege in this room that many people
have probably taken for granted over the years. At the Abortion
Survivors Network, we are blessed to serve abortion survivors
whose experiences are very different, from person to person. We
do not fit the typical rhetoric, when it comes to who an
abortion survivor is.
The youngest survivor we've connected with is the little
baby that I talked about in my testimony today, born at 25
weeks. Our abortion survivors then rage--range in age up into
survivors in their 70s. Someone's grandparent survived an
abortion. We have numerous survivors in their 70s who survived
even illegal abortion attempts. I have survivors in their 40s
who survived multiple chemical abortions before it was
something being pushed in our culture today.
Survivors are your neighbor, your family member, your
friend, your colleague, and most live their lives with deep
shame, living in a country that tells us we have no right to be
alive, that abortion is the supreme right of our land.
Our work is very much about healing those who are broken
from abortion, empowering them so that if they feel called to
use their voice, they can feel strong enough to use it. I think
the great question, Senator, is whether people will hear them.
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Cruz. Senator Ossoff.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
our panel for joining us, those here in person and those here
remotely. Dr. Perritt, I'd like to address my first question to
you, please. Today, in Georgia, of our 159 counties, a full
half have no obstetrics provider. I have no doctor at all, and
this shortage is particularly acute in rural areas where
patients are already underserved and OB wards are closing.
Georgia's State legislature passed a law which would've
banned access to abortion services as early as 6 weeks into a
pregnancy. I would note that that law has subsequently been
enjoined by a Federal judge, but, Dr. Perritt, can you please
speak to how such restrictions impact the practice of medicine
in areas where OB-GYN services are already in short supply and
how the threat of prosecution for providers deters the practice
of medicine in areas where there is inadequate access to
clinical facilities and doctors?
Dr. Perritt. Thank you, Senator, for that question. It's a
really important one. You know, I too have a graduate degree, a
master's in public health, and know very well the difference
between causation and correlation. The reality is that when we
see these same laws being passed, the undergirding is the same.
It's an attempt to limit access to care, particularly for those
that are historically marginalized already. Limiting access to
abortion care, criminalizing providers, criminalizing the
people we care for, criminalizing entire communities absolutely
causes poor health outcomes for pregnant people and for those
seeking abortion care. There is a clear causality there.
For someone like me, who had a deep desire to return to my
home community to provide care, the passing of legislation that
criminalizes the care that we provide, that criminalizes the
people that we care for, that criminalizes our community means
that we're going to have fewer providers who are going to go
back and take care of those that helped raise them. So, there's
an absolute causality here, and the idea that limiting access
to abortion care has a benefit to communities of color, in
particular, Black people, when we're sitting here at this
hearing and there are three Black women who are testifying in
support of this care, to me is absolutely offensive and
ahistorical and not grounded in any medical evidence or data
whatsoever.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Perritt. Just for the
benefit of other Members of the Committee, as a healthcare
provider and a trained public health expert, what was the
nature of your preparation and how does it feel to be
testifying before this Committee on this subject?
Dr. Perritt. To be honest with you, it makes me angry.
There's no other care that I provide that is scrutinized, that
is politicized, that is criminalized in the same way that
access to abortion care is. Abortion is healthcare, and
politics has absolutely no place in the decision-making what
happens in the clinic between patients and their providers,
whether they're seeing a doctor like me, who has trained more
than 14 years to provide community-grounded, culturally
responsive, patient-centered care, or whether they're seeing
amazing colleagues like nurse practitioners and nurse midwives.
We have a wonderful network of doulas and perinatal health
workers that all are there to absolutely support the people
that we care for. None of us trained to be able to show up here
to attempt to defend the care that we provide medically because
of political interference.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Perritt. The doctor-patient
relationship and its confidentiality is the cornerstone of the
ethical practice of medicine, a key element of compassionate,
quality healthcare. Can you discuss the impact of political
interference in that confidential relationship on your capacity
as a medical provider to provide care, to provide confidential
and accurate medical consultation to your patients?
Dr. Perritt. It's absolutely disruptive. You know, I'm not
a lawyer. I'm a doctor. I'm not a politician. The idea that
anyone should be able to interrupt, through legislative
efforts, the conversations that we're having, deeply personal
and private and, as you mentioned, Senator, confidential
conversations for folks that are making decisions about their
future, about their well-being, is absolutely unethical.
We've seen leading medical organizations like the American
Medical Association, the American College of OB-GYNs, who come
out very clearly and unequivocally stating that these--this
type of legislation, the barriers that WHPA would help protect
us against, are absolutely disruptive and disintegrate that
relationship between patients and providers.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Perritt, for your responses.
Thank you to all of our panelists for your presence here today.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Ossoff. I'd like to ask
Professor Goodwin about something I think I just heard Ms.
Foster say, namely, that somehow the Women's Health Protection
Act would forbid women from requesting ultrasounds. I just
wanted----
Professor Goodwin. Senator, that is inaccurate. If you'll
allow me, I would like to quickly make three points. The first
is that liberty is founded in our Constitution, so when we hear
questions about whether abortion is in the Constitution, that
reflects an originalist argument which falls on its face,
because liberty is in our Constitution. If we wanted to think
about it even more critically, who would dare think about
holding to a constitutional vision that denied women
personhood, a right to vote, a right to be gainfully employed
and earn equal wages, a constitution that was interpreted to
maintain Black people as three-fifths of persons?
There's a second point that I want to make, because Dr.
King was invoked today. In 1966, Dr. King said, ``Of all of the
injustices and inequities, inequity of healthcare is the most
inhuman.'' His words. He later said, in another speech, that
Black people seek what they are entitled to. He said that they
were once bred for slaveowners, to be sold for merchandise.
Quote, ``They do not welcome any solution which involves
population breeding as a weapon.'' Those are the words of Dr.
King as he received, in 1966, an award from Planned Parenthood.
Let me make one last point, and I appreciate you allowing
me to do so. The point of eugenics was raised in this hearing,
and it is awful. It's terrible. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld a Virginia law that denied women the opportunity to
control their own reproductive healthcare. It was a case called
Buck v. Bell. It was a horrific case, upholding a horrific law
that, sadly, served as the basis for eugenics law in Nazi
Germany.
What Carrie Buck, the poor 16-year-old white woman in that
case who had been raped by her employer's nephew--what she
needed was actually a law like WHPA that would have protected
her from the unethical, unconstitutional reaches of a State law
that seeks to undermine her human dignity and integrity. I
wanted to make those three points, and I'm happy to turn the
floor back over and answer any additional questions.
Chair Blumenthal. All of those three points were very, very
well said, including what you first said, namely, the Women's
Health Protection Act would in no way forbid women from having
ultrasounds. It would simply prohibit laws that require women
to receive unnecessary ultrasounds that they don't want and
don't need and simply delay a medical procedure, the healthcare
that they need and deserve. I have a few more questions, but I
see that Senator Hawley has arrived. If you want to proceed
with your questions, or I can ask a few so you can get settled.
Senator Hawley. I'm ready.
Chair Blumenthal. Go right ahead.
Senator Hawley. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for
having me. Thanks for waiting for me. Thanks to the witnesses
for being here today. Ms. Ohden, I want to say a particular
welcome to you, because I think you're from Kansas City,
Missouri, so it's great to have a Missourian here today. I'm so
grateful to you for being willing to be here and to share your
story. I'm familiar with just a little bit about your story,
and I so appreciate you being willing to share it. I just--so
many stories--so many of the stories of abortion survivors like
you, I think, really speak for themselves, but to have you here
and willing to share that is so, so powerful.
Why do you think there has been--I mean, just speaking from
your own experience, why do you think there has been so much
controversy around laws that would protect children who are
born alive after a failed abortion? We've seen this brought to
a vote. Just in my short time in the U.S. Senate, laws that
would protect children who are born alive after a failed
abortion have been brought to the floor multiple times and
denied a vote or voted down, blocked by Senators on the other
side. It amazes me that this is controversial. Why do you think
that is? Just speak to that for us, if you could.
Ms. Ohden. I believe our population of survivors, if they
were here today, would tell you that we see it as an
inconvenience. Our lives are inconvenient to the abortion
lobby, to the abortion narrative, and it's an incredibly
traumatic thing for us to have to live with, to be told that we
have no rights, to be told that we don't exist, to be told that
the act that tried to take our lives, and should have, is
someone else's right to exercise. There is something so
disturbing, Senator, about the fact that I have the right to an
abortion, but I didn't have the right to live.
You know, the great question is, when did my rights to
bodily autonomy begin? I have asked that question so many
times, and there's never been an answer. When we look at born-
alive legislation, I know that that is an uncomfortable place
for people to go, because when you see the humanity of an
abortion survivor, you see the humanity of the unborn child in
the womb, and there you go walking down the path to Roe. We are
not political fodder, Senator. We are human beings who deserve
the same rights that you are able to exercise.
Senator Hawley. That's so powerful. Thank you for sharing
that. I want to just ask you about that. I mean, what is it
about protecting children who are born alive after failed
abortion attempts--what do you think that that forces us, as a
society, to confront? I mean, what do you think that really--
what would protections like that, in the law--what would that
do? What would--what truth would that force us to recognize?
Ms. Ohden. That truth causes us to look at Roe. You know,
how many times have we heard that? ``This is a direct attack on
Roe.'' This is about human rights. Abortion survivors fight for
their lives in the womb in many different ways, depending on
the abortion procedure. Then many fight for their lives in the
womb once again. That is incredibly inhumane. None of us would
wish that upon our children, our grandchildren, a child that we
saw on the street. When we hear about abortion survivors, it
makes us uncomfortable, and it should.
We have to have a conversation about these stories that
exist in the shadows. More than anything, I am a healer. I am a
storyteller. Do you know how many survivors would love to be
here today to share their story with you? They feel like they
don't have a place at this table. My job is to not only support
them and heal them but to create a space where their voices can
be heard.
Senator Hawley. That's awesome. Thank you so much for
sharing that, and thank you for what you do. More than anything
else, I just wanted to be here today to give you a chance to
share a little bit of your story and just to bear witness to it
and to bear witness to your struggle to make sure that every
person in this country is welcome and wanted and protected by
the law.
As you said, your rights don't change, about what stage of
birth you're in or not. Your rights don't change based on
whether or not someone anticipated you were coming or not. Your
rights don't change because you look differently from other
people. Your rights are who you are, because you are a person,
and they were given to you by God.
I just think, as we look back in our history, you think of
the abolitionists who, for decades and decades and decades,
fought against the moral evil of slavery, fought it when it was
the majority position of the country, fought it when they were
told that they were crazy, fought it because they knew, they
knew that there was a moral truth that every person is created
equal and has equal rights, and they were willing to fight for
that in our country. That's what you're fighting for. That's
what pro-lifers are fighting for, is that great moral
principle.
I look forward to the day when we look back and say, ``How
could abortion ever have been allowed in this country? How
could we ever have allowed innocent, unborn life to be taken in
the womb?'' I think because of you, that day is coming, and
we'll look back and say that you expanded our own moral
understanding and you made this country a better place. Thank
you so much for what you're doing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. I understand that Senator Cruz has a few
more questions.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, a few
minutes ago, one of the witnesses observed that the
Constitution protects the right to liberty, and that is surely
true. It also protects the right to life. Explicitly and
repeatedly, it protects the right to life. Life is the first
right, the precondition to liberty, to the pursuit of
happiness, to every other right we enjoy. Without life, there
is no liberty. Without life, there is no pursuit of happiness.
I would note that the Supreme Court's reasoning in Roe v.
Wade--there is a reason that Justice Blackmun's opinion is
almost universally considered one of the most poorly reasoned
Supreme Court opinions to have ever issued, criticized from
left and right as exceptionally poor reasoning, untethered to
the Constitution.
Indeed, Roe v. Wade built on a prior opinion that
explained, in logic that only a lawyer could love, that, well,
yes, the rights we're looking to create, they're not in the
Constitution, they're not in the Bill of Rights, but you need
to understand, the Bill of Rights has emanations. Apparently
rights are glowing.
Those emanations, in turn, cast penumbras, which is a
fancy, tenpenny word for shadows. Within those penumbras, from
the emanations of the rights, that's where the Supreme Court
magically discovered the right to abortion. If you explain that
to anyone that doesn't have a juris doctorate degree, they will
look at you like you are a lunatic, and frankly, people with a
JD should look at you like you're a lunatic, as well, but they
have been taught a great deal of lunacy.
I also thought it was striking that the witness invoked the
case of Buck v. Bell. Buck v. Bell was indeed a dark chapter in
our Nation's history, a hideous chapter, where the Supreme
Court upheld the forced sterilization of women. What the
witness didn't mention is forced sterilization is a policy that
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood,
energetically advocated.
In 1923, Margaret Sanger wrote the following. ``These two
words, birth control, sum up our whole philosophy. It means the
release and cultivation of the better elements in our society
and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual
extinction of defective stocks, those human weeds which
threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American
civilization.'' That is despicable and bigoted and evil.
I would note that Margaret Sanger also advocated for the
forced sterilization of women with mental disabilities, with
physical disabilities, including, and these are her words,
quote, ``morons, mental defectives, and epileptics.'' This is
the patron saint of the movement for unlimited abortion on
demand, and her vision, sadly, has had much of it come to pass.
If Senate Democrats have their way, all of her vision will come
to pass.
The Chairman, a moment ago, took issue with the observation
that this bill, this radical bill that strikes down all
reasonable protections of life at the State level, that he said
it would not strike down laws granting a woman access to her
sonogram, like you were denied, Ms. Foster. Interestingly
enough, if you actually look at the terms of the Act, section
4(b) of the Act is a broad, catch-all provision that prohibits
all State and local laws that address abortion and, quote,
``impede access to abortion services.''
It is not complicated that if this were to pass, as you
noted, when women look at the sonogram, when they see their
unborn child, when they see the beating heart, when they see--I
remember with seeing my girls, their feet and hand, and they're
kicking and living, that many of them choose not to go through
with it. It does not take a terribly creative lawyer to say
that a policy that results in women choosing to protect life,
quote, ``impedes access to abortion services,'' and the
chances--I can actually quantify the chances that those laws
would be challenged under this bill at 100 percent. There is no
possibility they would not be challenged.
What I also found interesting is the Chairman picked that
one point to dispute. He doesn't dispute that his law would
strike down all laws restricting late-term abortions. He
doesn't dispute that his bill would strike down all laws
preventing abortions when the unborn child can feel pain. He
doesn't dispute that his law would strike down laws prohibiting
the horrific D&E abortions that rip the unborn child limb from
limb in a torturous way.
He doesn't dispute that his law would strike down laws
prohibiting discrimination, that it would allow discriminating
based on race, discriminating based on gender. You don't want a
girl? You don't want a boy? His law would say you can
discriminate based on gender, you can discriminate based on
race, you can discriminate based on disability. All of those
laws would be struck down.
He doesn't dispute that his law would strike down State
laws providing for parental consent or parental notification.
Hear this at home, parents. If your daughter wants to go get a
tattoo, if your daughter wants to get her ears pierced, they've
got to ask you. If your daughter breaks her toe and needs a
medical treatment, they've got to ask you. The position of
Senate Democrats is, they want to make it illegal to even
notify you that your daughter has gotten pregnant and is
considering a decision that she may regret the rest of her
life. That is radical and extreme, and that's not where the
American people are.
I would finally say, Mr. Chairman, and I want to ask
unanimous consent to enter two letters of opposition into the
record. The first is a letter by the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops, and the second is a letter by Dr.
Christina Francis on behalf of the American Association of Pro-
Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Chair Blumenthal. Without objection.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Cruz. I haven't
disputed those points that you make, but I will. In fact, this
law has nothing to do with parental consent. It does not
address parental notification. It does not outlaw ultrasounds.
I want to deal with some facts, here, because I think we
have heard from at least one of our witnesses, Tohan, about the
inaccuracies and mistruths and deception that was given to her;
for example, that an abortion would cause infertility. Informed
consent is vital. Informed consent about the facts is vital to
abortion services, just as it is to any medical procedure, and
this bill in no way impedes informed consent. In fact, just the
opposite. It promotes truth-telling. It promotes informed
consent.
Many States have abortion counseling requirements that
violate the principle of informed consent by requiring medical
providers to disclose information that is irrelevant and
entirely inaccurate in an effort to dissuade people from
obtaining abortions. You've just heard one example from one of
our witnesses.
Let me ask Dr. Perritt. In 33 States, women have to receive
counseling by law. They must receive counseling before an
abortion is performed. I want to ask you a series of questions
about some of the information that women are told during these
counseling sessions. In your professional medical opinion, does
abortion cause breast cancer?
Dr. Perritt. No, it doesn't.
Chair Blumenthal. In at least five States, counselors
inaccurately assert a link between abortion and an increased
risk of breast cancer, you'll be interested to know. Let me ask
you, in your professional medical opinion, and you've heard
Tohan testify today, is it true that abortion causes future
infertility?
Dr. Perritt. Absolutely not.
Chair Blumenthal. That's exactly what Tohan was told by a
counselor in Texas, that it would cause infertility. In at
least three States, written materials provided to women seeking
abortion inaccurately portray this risk. In your professional
medical opinion, is it true that medical abortion can be
stopped after a woman takes a first dose of pills?
Dr. Perritt. There is absolutely no evidence to support
that.
Chair Blumenthal. Six States require women to receive
medically inaccurate counseling that a medication abortion can
be stopped after the woman takes the first dose of pills. I
think we all ought to be personally ashamed that, in the United
States of America, the greatest country in the world, which
should have the best healthcare in the world, many medical
professionals are required by the State to misinform their
patients in making a highly personal decision. This decision is
one that they alone should make, in consultation with their
doctors.
The Women's Health Protection Act would, very simply, put
an end to an ongoing reality where our doctors are required by
law, by law, to mislead about the risks of a safe medical
procedure. We're talking here about healthcare. We're talking
about essential healthcare that women deserve,
constitutionally, as a matter of the right to privacy.
Let me just conclude, without getting into a debate with my
colleague about the merits of my mentor Justice Blackmun's
opinion in Roe v. Wade, that the right of privacy is now
enshrined in our jurisprudence, fortunately. It's a right
invoked by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
in a variety of other contexts; for example, in talking about
internet freedoms. It is a right enshrined in a series of well-
respected constitutional decisions, Planned Parenthood v.
Casey, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, June Medical
Services v. Russo, and it should be upheld in Dobbs v. Jackson
Women's Health Organization that's now before the Court.
It should be upheld because all of the three most recent
Justices confirmed sat before us in this building and said that
they would follow the principle of stare decisis, as Justice
Roberts did in Casey--I'm sorry, in Whole Woman's Health, even
though he said he might differ with the conclusion.
The right of privacy is now a pillar of our jurisprudence.
My colleague may be critical of Justice Blackmun's opinion in
Roe v. Wade, but these restrictions on healthcare interfere
with that basic right, and I think that the statute that has
been proposed simply requires truth-telling, privacy, and the
protection of a woman's right to make decisions about when to
have a child.
Last month, Texas passed an extreme law that would allow
anyone who helps a patient get abortion care, including
providing the abortion as well as providing financial help or
even driving them to the appointment, to be sued in a court of
law. Dr.--Professor Goodwin, could you walk us through the
effects of that Texas law, and others like it, on the
availability of abortion care?
Professor Goodwin. Thank you very much for that question,
Senator Blumenthal. Yes, I'd be happy to do that and then to
make additional comments. With the Texas law, one of the things
that it does is it deputizes private citizens to file lawsuits
against individuals who are assisting individuals in
terminating a pregnancy, against physicians, against
individuals who might be seeking to terminate a pregnancy. That
kind of vigilantism is dangerous for our country. It's
dangerous for the State of Texas.
We have seen, in not-too-long-ago history in our country,
where abortion clinics have been targeted for violence, gun
violence, bombings, cars being driven through the front doors,
where doctors have been targeted, where doctors have been
killed. I will tell you that I work with physicians who care
about their patients, would do anything to help their patients
in lawful, ethical ways, and they fear being in photographs. I
applaud Dr. Perritt for being here, when I know so many are
deeply concerned about the potential violence that they
encounter just when they are trying to help their patients.
Let me say this, too, Senator Blumenthal. It appears that
my testimony has hit a nerve. Black women's deaths during
pregnancies belie any purported sincerity and commitment with
regard to anti-abortion laws that claim that they are to
protect their health. That's just not the case. Black women's
high maternal mortality rates are, in fact, not a hypothetical.
Black women, instead, are the canaries in the coal mine and
long have been.
Let's be clear on another point. We are not here to talk
about Margaret Sanger, no more than we are here to talk about
Chief Justice Taney and his decision in Dred Scott, where he
said that Black people were never meant to be citizens and are
chattel to be acted upon by white Americans. He's not the
subject of the hearing today. Neither is Margaret Sanger.
Further, it's important to recognize that Roe v. Wade saved
lives. Prior to Roe v. Wade, there were tens of thousands of
people who died as they were attempting to terminate
pregnancies and were subjected to the most inhumane types of
circumstances. As the legal professional on this panel, let me
be clear about something else. It's been mentioned that Roe v.
Wade was an unfortunate decision in how it was reasoned, and it
strikes me for its grave overlook of the cases that we really
would be concerned about there that denied humanity and liberty
and so much more.
Like Dred Scott, like Plessy v. Ferguson, like Korematsu,
like Minor v. Happersett, that denied women the right to vote,
or Burwell v. Illinois, that denied women the opportunity to
become lawyers, or like State v. Mann or Prigg v. Pennsylvania.
These are cases that should be part of the lexicon when we are
thinking about equality denied to vulnerable people.
When you talk about, Senator Blumenthal, the legacy of
privacy being ensconced in our Supreme Court jurisprudence,
let's add, to that, Griswold. Let's add Eisenstadt v. Baird.
Let's add Loving v. Virginia, for which--a case which provided
for interracial unions to take place in the United States. You
mentioned Whole Woman's Health, a case that Justice Kennedy
sided with the majority in, in striking down two Texas
antiabortion laws, and June Medical v. Russo, which Chief
Justice John Roberts sided with the majority in that case, also
to strike down a Louisiana law.
If you'll just allow me one more moment, it strikes me that
we should be thinking about, perhaps, Brown v. Board of
Education, because in the backdrop of Whole Woman's Health or
even Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, we see these
cases that seek to undermine the constitutional right to be
able to terminate a pregnancy, and it reminds me, if a State
had tried to undermine Brown v. Board of Education by enacting
laws that would, in fact, conflict with the Supreme Court's
jurisprudence.
What you are attempting to do today, and your colleagues,
is to preserve the right for women and people who become
pregnant to carry out their decision-making with independence,
autonomy, privacy, and dignity. You, in a way--it's a way
leaning into that, in such a way that we could lean into Brown
v. Board of Education being protected if there were laws that
sought to undermine desegregation in the United States.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. We are about to end, unless
you want to take a recess for the third vote. The third vote is
about to close pretty soon, if you--so, we will end, to go to
the third vote, which is going to wrap pretty quickly.
I want to thank all the witnesses. That last point, I
thought, was very cogent. We often overlook the effects of
these restrictions on the providers. We've been focusing a lot
on the recipients of patient care, but obviously providers
often have to endure burdensome medically unnecessary
regulations that affect their lives. A number of States have
passed laws that would make providing abortion services a
felony, even allow incarceration of providers. I want to thank
Professor Goodwin for calling attention to the practical
effects of these laws, and all of the witnesses for offering
your stories and your views and observations. They've been very
helpful.
I'm looking forward to the continuing debate on the Women's
Health Protection Act, which is a vital source of potential
protection to the people of this country from the TRAP laws and
unnecessary restrictions on medical care that are looming
larger, more frequent, more dangerous, and may well be
exacerbated in times to come. We face an urgent, unprecedented
crisis in healthcare in this country, and it focuses in
particular on reproductive rights guaranteed by the United
States Constitution.
Thank you all for being here today. The record will remain
open for 1 week, and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
A P P E N D I X
Miscellaneous submissions:
101 Faith-Based, Religious, & Civil Rights Organizations......... 962
Abortion Care Network............................................ 889
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH).......... 102
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, Texas Policy
Evaluation Project............................................ 1015
Advocates for Youth.............................................. 910
AJPH Reserach Article............................................ 728
American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
(AAPLOG) Letter............................................... 84
American Atheists................................................ 915
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)............................ 882
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.............. 898
Article "The Dangerous Threat to Roe v. Wade".................... 220
Bipartisan Pro-Choice Legislative Caucus (BPCLC)................. 358
Catholics for Choice............................................. 922
Center for Reproductive Rights, The Covid-19 Pandemic............ 391
Center for Reproductive Rights................................... 929
Center for Reproductive Rights, What if Roe Fell 2019............ 759
Center on the Economics of Reproductive Health................... 404
Century Foundation Testimony of Jamila K. Toylor, Ph.D........... 988
Clinical Abortion Staffing Solutions (CASS)...................... 918
Cobalt Abortion Fund in Denver, Colorado......................... 913
Cobalt, Letter from Christina Taylor............................. 924
Cohen, Dr. Rebecca, from Denver, Colorado........................ 959
Consideration of the Women's Health Protection of 2021........... 1081
Feminist Women's Health Center................................... 970
Freedom From Religion Foundation................................. 966
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR)....................... 974
Guttmacher Institute, April 30, 2021............................. 221
Guttmacher Institute, State Facts About Abortion................. 402
Hope Clinic for Women............................................ 985
If/When/How Lawyering for Reproductive Justice................... 223
In Our Own Voice, National Black Women's Reprodutive Justice..... 228
Jackson Women's Health Organization v. Currier................... 346
Jewish Clergy Leaders............................................ 992
Johnson, Melissa................................................. 1050
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.................... 379
LGBTQ Organizations.............................................. 1038
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.................. 1098
Lindo, Jason, Ph.D............................................... 1028
Medical organizations............................................ 1081
Middleton, Karen................................................. 996
Midwest Access Coalition......................................... 1044
Midwest Access Project........................................... 1047
NARAL Pro-Choice America......................................... 1056
National Abortion Federation (NAF)............................... 1053
National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC)....................... 355
National Bureau of Economic Research............................. 440
National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).......................... 1065
National Women's Health Network.................................. 1070
National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association
(NFPRHA)...................................................... 1067
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice............... 998
National Partnership for Women & Families........................ 1061
National Women's Law Center, Fatima Graves, President and CEO.... 362
Planned Parenthood............................................... 1072
Power to Decide.................................................. 1075
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism........................ 1077
Reproductive Justice for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and AAPI
communities; LGBTQIA+ individuals; young people, and people
with low incomes.............................................. 1102
Roe and Intersectional Liberty Doctrine.......................... 738
Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States......... 510
Schoen, Johanna, Ph.D............................................ 976
Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities............................... 96
Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, The Women's Health Protection
Act........................................................... 98
Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM)....................... 1079
State of Black Women & Reproductive Justice...................... 225
State of New York, Office of the Attorney General................ 849
Supreme Court of the United States No. 15-274A................... 104
Supreme Court of the United States No. 18-1323, 18-1460.......... 167
Tampa Bay Access Force (TBAF).................................... 1095
Various Professors of Law........................................ 855
Whole Woman's Health............................................. 1105
Whole Woman's Health Alliance (WWHA)............................. 389
Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA)............................. 1010
Women's Health Protection Act of 2021 (WHPA)..................... 926
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